Move over Rico. Have you heard about the new article out in Beh'l Processes about a BC named Chaser who has not only learned names for 1022 objects, but has shown that she distinguishes between verbs and nouns? There's more to this study, but let me start with the noun/verb issue. This is an especially interesting issue: one of the criticisms about the research on the dog, Rico, was that there was no proof he understood a label given to an object as a noun versus a verb. In other words, if you say "Go get your ball," does your dog understand that "ball" refers to an object, or that the entire string of sounds means "go get something and bring it back". This is not a idle question. You may recall a post I wrote about Willie's difficulties discriminating between objects, "What Do Words Read More
What IS “training,” anyway?
My last post raised the question "when should one start training a dog," and we've had a lively and interesting discussion about it in the comment section. Our conversation has raised, as good conversations often do, another issue that I think deserves attention: How do you define training? Many comments have said that we are training our dogs the second we bring them home, which closely reflects my perspective. However, others have said that they "don't start training until the dog is older, they just teach them "manners" (which is closer to Kelly's perspective). One commenter said that her dog knew sit, leave it, polite leash walking, etc, but she didn't start "serious training" until the dog was older. What a perfect example of how we are all define "training" in our own way. On Read More
My New Year’s “Not-Resolutions” — Yours?
Like many people, I'm classically conditioned to associate "New Year's Resolutions" with broad, generic and doomed-to-fail pronouncements, like "I'll be healthier!" "I'll lose 20 pounds!" "I'll be an all around better person!" "I'll kind and generous to everyone I meet!" I made my share of impossible resolutions in decades past, and like most of them, they fell apart before the end of January. However, as is often the case, learning about behavior and dog training has helped me to come up with focused and attainable goals, so now I don't make New Year's Resolutions, I made one or two commitments for the year to come. We know that commitments are most often kept if 1) they are focused and specific, 2) they are attainable and 3) they are made public. Not that you have to blog about them Read More
New Kiwi Friends
Couldn't resist... here is a flock (should I say mob?) of some of my new Kiwi friends. What a great day we had together! (And thanks Karen for that yummy NZ lamb dinner and for all the good company. Looking forward to tomorrow.... Read More
Stay Training – Phase I; Willie’s First Herding Dog Trial
Thanks for the discussion about the use of Body Blocks for teaching Stay, and to re-iterate a comment I made, they work equally well with dogs of all breeds and sizes (but you have to be a bit quicker with some breeds and with small dogs). If your dog is getting around you to the left or right, then you might be too close. It's herding dogs that taught me that you have more control at a bit of a distance than if you are right up close. I got away with being quite close in the video in the last post, because the dogs were relatively easy to block, but if you are having trouble, try backing up a bit. It's also a great way to learn to read dogs (what body part moves first when a dog starts to get up?) and to perfect your timing. I mentioned in last week's post that the video showed me Read More
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